How to Create a Restaurant App? Its Process, Types & Importance

Whether you’re an independent restaurant, restaurant chain, coffee shop establishment, cloud kitchen establishment, food truck/pop-up kitchen owner, or food entrepreneur looking to scale sustainably, restaurant app development is the way to go.

We’re here to help you understand how to build a restaurant app. Our team of senior restaurant app development specialists have helped 70+ restaurants brands over the past decade to move from manual to mobile-first experience and drive profits with our custom restaurant app development service.

This restaurant app development guide contains everything you need to build a highly scalable restaurant app solution that’s sustainable for a long term competition. We’ve covered everything right from types of restaurant apps and steps to build restaurant apps to cost to develop a restaurant app, top monetization strategies for restaurant apps, and more.

What is Restaurant App Development?

Restaurant app development is the process of designing and developing a mobile or web application for restaurants. These apps act as a bridge between restaurants and their customers for operations like online food ordering, booking tables, and making payments.

Beyond the core development stages like planning, designing, coding, and testing, these apps deliver practical business benefits. They increase the number of orders, reduce manual tasks, and improve customer engagement. Additionally, developing a restaurant app boosts repeat sales through features like loyalty rewards, push notifications, and secure digital payments.

What are the Different Types of Restaurant Apps?

Before planning to develop a restaurant app, it is advised to understand the different types of restaurant apps. Below, in the table, we have mentioned the different types of restaurant apps for your reference:

What are the Steps for Restaurant App Development?

Developing a restaurant app requires a planned strategy that meets your business goals. The process includes several stages, such as understanding your target audience, identifying market opportunities, and collaborating with the right mobile app development company that has a good restaurant app portfolio. Let’s understand the process in detail.

Step 1: Conduct Market Research

The first step in how to create a restaurant app is conducting in-depth market research. It is important to collect all the information before moving forward with the development process.
Find the answer to the questions:

• Who is my target audience?
• What kind of experience do they truly want?
• What are the current market gaps?
• What are the current restaurant industry trends?
• What are their pain points when dining or ordering online?

Start researching the leading platforms like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and OpenTable; know how they work and what is missing. This will help you in understanding the market gaps and help you in designing an app that meets user expectations and stands out in the competitive market.

Step 2: Choose an App Development Company

Once your research is complete, the next step is to hire expert developers from a reputable restaurant app development company who can turn your restaurant app idea into a scalable solution. Their expertise and approach will directly influence your product’s success.

Make sure you are collaborating with a restaurant booking app development company that has proven years of experience in creating solutions for startups and businesses in the food and hospitality industry. While searching, do the following:

• Review their portfolio
• See client testimonials
• Check case studies

An experienced company will understand your concept, assist you in creating an app, guide you in selecting the tech stack, and ensure a smooth deployment.

Step 3: Define Features for Restaurant App

After selecting a restaurant app development company to create an app for your restaurant, the next step is to finalize the core features for your app.

A restaurant app caters to multiple roles – customers, restaurant owners, delivery partners, and admins, each requiring distinct functionalities.

Clearly outlining these core features at the beginning helps your restaurant app development team plan the architecture, prioritize functionalities, and ensure a smooth, user-centric experience.

Restaurant App Features for Customer/User

Restaurant App Features for Restaurant Merchant

Restaurant App Features for Delivery Partner

Restaurant App Features for Admin Panel

Step 4: Design an Intuitive UI/UX

The next step is to focus on creating a user-friendly interface. A well-designed app should be visually appealing and provide a seamless, intuitive experience for both users and staff.

Collaborate with experienced restaurant app developers to create a restaurant app design that matches your brand identity and user expectations.

A strong and appealing UI/UX design lays the foundation of your restaurant app’s success, drives user engagement, and turns users into loyal customers.

Step 5: Choose the Right Tech Stack

Choosing the right tech stack and platform is one of the most crucial decisions in the restaurant app development process. The tech stack you choose determines your app’s performance and scalability.

If you are planning for native app development, you have to build separate versions for iOS and Android. However, if you aim to reach a wider audience, a cross-platform approach using frameworks like Flutter or React Native might work more efficiently.

Step 6: Start With MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

Once you are done with your research and selection of tech stack and platform, it’s time to start building your app. Instead of investing in a full-fledged product, starting with an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) for restaurant app development is a smart decision.

An MVP in mobile app development will help you validate your restaurant app idea by launching a simplified version, only with the core features. You can gather real-world feedback from multiple users in an MVP version without investing much.

Developing an MVP at the initial stage will help you to:

• Validate your app idea
• Minimize development cost
• Get user feedback faster
• Accelerate time to market
• Lower business risk

Step 7: Develop Full-Fledged Restaurant App

Once your MVP has been tested and validated with real users, the next step is to start developing a fully-fledged restaurant app. In this step, integrate advanced features and upgrade the app functionalities based on user feedback and market insights.

At this stage, make sure your development team will work on strengthening the app’s architecture, integrating core features, optimizing performance, and ensuring scalability.

Ensure your development team integrates advanced features like AI chatbots, dashboards, and other tools that engage users while providing real value to merchants and delivery partners.

Once development is complete, it’s critical to thoroughly test the app, optimize performance, and ensure security compliance. This ensures that your on-demand restaurant application development functions seamlessly and provides a smooth experience for all users.

Step 8: Test, Deploy, and Launch your Restaurant App

Once your restaurant app development process is finished, the next step is to test, deploy, and launch. This phase ensures your app is fully functional and delivers a smooth user experience across all platforms.

The testing phase involves checks for usability, performance, security, and compatibility of the app, helping to identify and resolve bugs or glitches before the app goes live. This ensures smooth operations.

After testing, it’s time for app deployment, that is, submitting the app to the App Store and Google Play Store, configuring servers, and ensuring all integrations work smoothly. Make sure all the security and compliance are checked before the launch.

After the launch, make sure to update your app regularly according to the feedback given by the users. This will improve the app’s performance and keep your app aligned with the user expectations.

How Much Does it Cost to Develop a Restaurant App?

The restaurant app development cost for startups ranges between USD 9,500 to USD 80,000+, depending on various factors like app features, tech stack, and others.

The restaurant app development cost depends on various factors, such as app complexity, features, design, tech stack, developer’s location, and many more.

Below, we have outlined the estimated cost breakdown for basic, moderate, and complex restaurant apps, including the MVP app development cost, to help you plan your budget effectively.

Note: The restaurant app development cost may vary depending on the requirements, app features, tech stack, and others.

What are the Top Monetization Strategies for Restaurant Apps?

After understanding the development process, cost, and other details for restaurant app development, it’s important to know how restaurant apps make money.

Choosing the right monetization model can determine how profitable your app becomes and how effectively it supports your business goals.

Below are some proven monetization strategies for restaurant apps that are used by most of the top food delivery apps like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and similar.

1. Commission-Based Model

The commission-based model is the most popular revenue model in the food-tech industry. For restaurants, the platform charges the partner restaurants a small commission on every successful order or reservation. That means revenue grows as order volume increases.

2. Subscription or SaaS Model

The subscription-based model offers premium benefits to the customers and restaurant merchants. By paying a fixed monthly or annual fee, customers can avail themselves of the benefits of free deliveries and exclusive discounts on every order. This will give you a consistent income from loyal customers.

3. Delivery Fee or Surge Pricing

This strategy adds flexibility to increase the delivery charges or apply surge pricing during the high-demand periods. This is a smart way to balance the demand, cover logistics costs, and maximize profit during peak hours. Ultimately, you can maintain healthy profit margins when order volume spikes.

4. Featured Listings for Restaurants

This monetization model is mostly preferred by discovery or listing-based restaurant apps, in which they sell premium visibility to restaurants. Businesses can pay for banner placements, featured listings, or top-ranking spots within the app to get visible to customers.

What are the Future Trends in Restaurant Apps?

As technology continues to evolve, restaurant apps are moving beyond simple ordering and delivery solutions. Below, we have outlined the restaurant app trends expected in 2026 and beyond.

1. AI-Powered Personalization

As Artificial Intelligence continues to redefine industries, restaurant apps are embracing this. AI will enable the apps to analyze customer preferences, order patterns, and dining preferences to deliver personalized recommendations.

With these operations, AI is set to make food ordering and dining experiences more intuitive.

2. IoT & Smart Kitchen Integration

With advancements in technology, restaurant apps will increasingly integrate with IoT-enabled kitchen equipment and inventory systems to automate cooking, order tracking, and stock management.

This automation will reduce errors, minimize food waste, and increase operational efficiency.

3. Augmented Reality Menus

The implementation of AR technology in restaurant apps enables customers to visualize dishes in 3D before ordering, explore virtual menus, and view nutritional information for the dishes.

This will increase user engagement and make dining and food ordering more interactive.

4. Voice Ordering and Chatbots

Nowadays, customers often don’t have the time to place food orders or make reservations manually through searching and typing. With AI chatbots and voice-enabled features, users can easily order food or book tables through natural conversation.

It speeds up service, improves accessibility, and offers a hands-free experience that customers expect.

5. Autonomous and Drone Delivery

With the growing focus on contactless services and automation, the integration of drone and robot deliveries in the future in restaurant apps will change the last-minute delivery.

These technologies will allow faster, safer, and more efficient order fulfillment, reducing delivery time and cost.

Restaurant Apps Created by aPurple

At aPurple, we’ve worked with restaurant startups and enterprises across Brazil, Hong Kong, and New Zealand, helping them turn their app ideas into innovative digital solutions. From a seamless food delivery app to restaurant finder and restaurant chain software, we’ve highlighted a few success stories that showcase our innovation and expertise in building custom restaurant apps that blend technology, usability, and scalability.

Wrapping Up!

Above, we have discussed in detail all the steps involved in restaurant app development. Building your own restaurant app isn’t just about competing with customers; it is more about creating a strong brand, gaining the trust of customers, providing them with features that they want, and running your business more efficiently.

We at aPurple work closely with startups and restaurant brands that want to bring their restaurant app ideas to a fully functional digital solution. Whether you’re launching your first food delivery app or scaling a full-service restaurant platform, our team helps you design, develop, and launch an app that fits your goals perfectly. With the right strategy and technology, you can turn your restaurant app into a powerful product, and we’re here to help you make that happen.

Let’s connect to build your restaurant app together!

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Author

Mahil Jasani

Mahil Jasani is an enthusiastic web and mobile app development expert who always loves to enlighten readers about his experiences and the ever-evolving technologies in today's world. He has a decade of experience helping startups and enterprises with custom digital solutions to drive better ROI results across different industries.